permaculture

["paul wheaton" <paul@richsoil.com>]

So what is needed is some kind of seed that could be tossed onto
grass, would have a way of germinating there, then outcompeting the
grass ....  it would either be some sort of long term solution or it
would then be succeeded by something that would be a long term
solution - yet easier to put down in an orchard than dealing with
grass.

Hmmmmm .....  so if hairy vetch seed were tossed down mid fall ...
and then it pretty much croaked in ...  what ... june?  (I've never
grown hairy vetch, I've only read about it) the grass should be pretty
much gone and the vetch is also done.  If you just smoosh it down, you
could toss some other seed on that.  Maybe a mix could be made from
seaberry, siberian pea shrub, alfalfa, dandelion, yarrow, garlic
chives .... etc.  And then toss that out where the hairy vetch is.  It
then grows up and outcompetes  the grass - and provides solutions for
the coming summer and for the years to come.

Of course, I'm making some big assumptions about hairy vetch here.

I can think of dozens of folks with fruit trees that don't have an
interest in learning anything more and insist that mowing grass is
good enough.  It would be great to offer a solution.  When I encounter
somebody like that I could hand them two seed packets and say "Toss
this seed out around the end of septemberl, and then put this seed in
the same place around the first of june.  You'll have less to mow,
your tree will be healthier, you will have a pretty garden growing
under your tree, you'll attract more birds and butterflies, and you'll
get some extra edibles out of the deal too."

Granted, there are better approaches, but I'm guessing that this might
be better than leaving grass.  It might even persuade a lot of these
folks that this permaculture stuff might be worth another look.

Anybody wanna suggest some seeds for something like this?

On 5/22/07, Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net> wrote:
> paul wheaton wrote:
>
> >Marjory,
> >
> >It seems that many orchardists grow grass under their fruit trees.  I
> >don't understand why.  My (limited) understanding is that the grass
> >roots occupy roughly the same space as the fruit tree roots.
> >
> Depending on the scale you work at, it takes work to get away from
> grasses, and grasses may dominate over time under neglect... then mowing
> or grazing the grass becomes the alternative to letting the grass grow
> and become more competative... but then mowing/grazing can be a
> disturbance that encourages grasses which are well adapted to that kind
> of distrubance -- you're in a feedback cycle.  In some settings, fruit
> yield is limited by soil moisture, and so reducing transpiring leaf area
> in association with your trees could be a strategy to increase monocrop
> yield.  Not saying its a good idea, or the best solution -- just is what
> it is and can pay the bills if you happen to be brainwashed into
> thinking about bills ;)  So Fukuoka has good ideas for converting to
> non-grass plants, but it looks risky from the perspective of someone
> conditioned to like the control of mowed grass, and transition to a
> semi-wild system may in fact be risky for yield as you figure out what
> the hell your doing.
> ~Paul
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> -go to the above link to subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list-